Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people

This page documents an English Wikipedia policy. It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts WP:BLPPROD WP:STICKY

This page in a nutshell: Biographies of living persons without any sources (reliable or unreliable) or links to support the claims made in the article may be proposed for deletion and will be deleted unless at least one reliable source is added.

Unsourced biographies of living people (BLPs) are eligible for a special proposed deletion process, BLPPROD. To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography. Unlike standard proposed deletion, the BLP deletion template may be removed only after the biography contains a reliable source that supports at least one statement made about the person in the article. If the biography remains unsourced after seven days, the biography may be deleted. This proposed deletion mechanism is intended to augment, not supersede, other Wikipedia deletion processes or content policies.

A common source of confusion in application is the different treatment of presence of sources for placement of the tag, versus removal of the tag. The requirements can be summed up as: only add a BLPPROD if there are no sources in any form that support any statement made about the person in the article, but once (properly) placed, it can only be removed if a reliable source is added. This compromise avoids the need for judgement calls about reliability of sources for placement, and limits that issue to the far fewer instances, at the other end, where a source is actually added during the seven-day period.

Note: BLP articles may still be nominated for standard PROD if they do not meet BLPPROD criteria, or even if an article has previously been flagged for BLPPROD and declined.